We all know the importance of the customer in retail. We also know that it is the customer satisfaction which will help us carve a niche for ourselves and our brand amidst fierce competition prevalent in the market today. No wonder, each retailer today is all set to woo his customer with attractive loyalty programs. But then, is designing and implementing a loyalty program as simple as it sounds and more importantly is it enough to just have a loyalty program in place relevant to just our brand when the customer wishes to redeem his cash \/ points earned? We get talking with Bryan Pearson, president and chief executive officer, LoyaltyOne<\/strong> and author of the book The Loyalty Leap to put our queries to rest.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n He calls himself a grandfather of loyalty and coalition loyalty programs, And by no means is he wrong. Not only is his knowledge on the history of loyalty programs impeccable but the insights he shares with regards to its current market dynamics, global trend and future potential can leave you wanting to record each word that he has to share. Says Pearson, \u201cI think the original loyalty programs were airline programs going back to American Airlines and The British Airways. They were the pioneers. This was back in the 1980s wherein the frequent flyers could collect points and redeem it for something free. Post the airlines, it was the hospitality industry and it was only towards the early 1990s that the retail industry started having strong loyalty programs for their customers. So to speak, we are sitting on something that is just about two decades old.\u201d Adding more to the history bit he says, \u201cOriginally it was just value add to the customers. Only later was it seen as a means of promotion and get people to consolidate more of their spending then they might have done in a more fragmented environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, across the world, loyalty programs gained momentum and to encash on their growing importance and popularity, the concept of coalition \/ partner loyalty programs came into being. Shares Pearson, \u201cChanges that this industry has witnessed have been enormous as people started looking to innovate around the programs that they had to offer. We had three dimensions \u2013 one is just the program itself \u2013 thinking about how do I take it to the next level \u2013 probably the easiest one of that is \u2013 once you started understanding the customers, it was time to reward them according to their spending patterns and segment them into silver \/ gold \/ platinum members. So I think you saw program expansion in terms of \u2013 So what do I get for joining \/ being a good customer to this brand \/ retailer? The second thing that quickly happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s was the emergence of a partner model which not only offered great learning’s to the brands \/ retailers but also incremental benefits to customers\u00a0 – an ability to earn bigger and more aspirational rewards. The third dimension I think is really being driven more over time over the past 10-15 years with the internet and advent of database technology enabler which has given rise to what I call Relevance Marketing. This ability to actually deeply understand the profiles and segments of customers you have and connect their shopping behavior and be able to communicate and design the marketing activities on a one to one basis. This has been a trajectory that has really driven\u00a0 various programs we see today.\u201d<\/p>\n